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Economic costs of war

watson.brown.edu

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Re: Economic costs of war

#261

Post by heresie-dabord »

mc32 wrote: post #243
el_jay wrote: post #118

To those here riffing on the theme of “this misrepresents the volume and beneficiaries of the transactions involved” - you’re not wrong. Accurate representation of public info like this is a top organisational problem for our species at the moment. But I do think you miss the point, so aptly put by Mr Eisenhower: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a thef…

Ever since we reneged on the decision Kennedy made to pull out of VietNam by Johnson, we've thought continually we were dealing with another defeated Japan or defeated Germany --the enemy population would just comply to our wishes, so we kept on thinking we could "turn them into replicas of American government" This thinking has undermined our actions in every major war since then, with the exception of GWI. Gulf War…

> A nation has to work out its own problems for itself.

This point being raised, it is time for the US to spend money on education to support its own democracy.

Re: Economic costs of war

#262

Post by crummy »

abc_lisper wrote: post #248
bllguo wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

absolutely maddening. The US has a network of military bases and armies spread across the world, interjects itself into the affairs of countries worldwide, is by far the greatest warmonger since WW2, are literally on the heels of a colossal failure in Afghanistan that has set the region back decades, yet it's _China_ who are the violent Nazis.

CCP is different from China. If you think CCP has some moral high ground you are deluded. They basically do what the hell they want, as demonstrated many times

When has the US ever done anything but whatever the hell they wanted?

Re: Economic costs of war

#263

Post by baybal2 »

mc32 wrote: post #243
el_jay wrote: post #118

To those here riffing on the theme of “this misrepresents the volume and beneficiaries of the transactions involved” - you’re not wrong. Accurate representation of public info like this is a top organisational problem for our species at the moment. But I do think you miss the point, so aptly put by Mr Eisenhower: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a thef…

Ever since we reneged on the decision Kennedy made to pull out of VietNam by Johnson, we've thought continually we were dealing with another defeated Japan or defeated Germany --the enemy population would just comply to our wishes, so we kept on thinking we could "turn them into replicas of American government" This thinking has undermined our actions in every major war since then, with the exception of GWI. Gulf War…

> we've thought continually we were dealing with another defeated Japan or defeated Germany --the enemy population would just comply to our wishes, so we kept on thinking we could "turn them into replicas of American government"

You though, but you did not did.

In both prior cases US ran moderately competent occupation government, and by some accounts one better than their own.

The model US followed in Vietnam was not this. Ngo Dinh Diem was a Syngman Rhee 2.0, but even worse. Here, you can say Karzai was Syngman Rhee 3.0.

All shared a history of being overthrown because of progressing nationalist drift within their own power bases.

Re: Economic costs of war

#264

Post by vmception »

hestefisk wrote: post #207

“Medicare for all”, the single payer universal healthcare system in the US, was projected to cost between $16-34T [1] over a decade. I know there are some big questions around the actual cost of US aggression / state terrorism since 9/11 (ie 6.4T vs 2T as per other entries in this thread). A rough 80/20 analysis suggests: * We could have funded free healthcare to roughly one quarter of the US population for 10 years…

A healthier population would lower healthcare costs

Just like building one clean water resource in an African village reduces costly ailments by orders of magnitude

Re: Economic costs of war

#265

Post by anyfoo »

sgregnt wrote: post #258
anyfoo wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like saying the best time to start saving for retirement is 30 years into the future, because by then investment returns may be higher.

It's a nice saying... but may I push back? Maybe it's like saying instead of insisting to keep a positive balance, take a debt and go study in a callege. Then profit for the rest of your life?

Not even going into the issue that we don't have time to "go to college" before this needs to be fixed, what actually is the "college" in your analogy? And the balance is already negative.

Re: Economic costs of war

#266

Post by 55555 »

jdavis703 wrote: post #251
Mizza wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this a lot but don't understand why. China has every motivation to prop up the Taliban. A sister comment already noted the mineral resources, but don't forget the main function of Afghanistan as a nation: production of heroin. Narcopolitics are so fantastically more significant than ever gets any attention from "surface" media, but this is the name of the game. Chinese fentanyl has taken over the global opiate…

The Taliban taxes opium farming and manufacturing. It’s believed to be a significant source of revenue for them. But, China probably still has the upper hand in the opiate business here, because fentanyl is far easier to smuggle.

China has easier access to opium/heroin from the golden triangle anyway, if they need a non-syntheic.

Re: Economic costs of war

#267

Post by exclipy »

bamboozled wrote: post #98
epicureanideal wrote: post #75

Perhaps they should've spent this much on medical research instead. For the same money perhaps we could save a few million people dying of various diseases or cancer. It would take a whole lot of terrorist events to counter the benefits of significant R&D funding for medicine (or maybe a lot of other things).

Climate change will destabilize the world more than any "terrorists" could. Also would've been nice to have seen 6.4 trillion go into renewables tech and investments ~ 20 years ago.

To put this amount in perspective, $6,400 billion is 640 times the amount Jeff Bezos is putting into solving climate change. Wow.

Re: Economic costs of war

#268

Post by yellowcake0 »

api wrote: post #198
NonContro wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In terms of cutting costs, the way we exited Afghanistan is the best way to do it. Pull out overnight, abandon all the equipment, and the rapid takeover by the Taliban means we don't need to keep running bombing missions to support a slowly retreating national army. In that regard I'd see the current situation as a success, not a failure. It also seems like the Taliban have chilled out a bit, since we're not seeing w…

If the Taliban are smart they won’t do reprisals but instead will offer amnesty in exchange for service. The dumbest thing we did in Iraq was to do the functional equivalent of the Taliban doing reprisals by disbanding the military, government, and Ba’ath party. It created a mass unemployment problem and swelled the ranks of the opposition with listless now unemployed people.

And not only listless now unemployed people, but listless now unemployed people whose only job skill was being a soldier. I mean what the hell did we think they were going to do.

Re: Economic costs of war

#269

Post by grecy »

mc32 wrote: post #243
el_jay wrote: post #118

To those here riffing on the theme of “this misrepresents the volume and beneficiaries of the transactions involved” - you’re not wrong. Accurate representation of public info like this is a top organisational problem for our species at the moment. But I do think you miss the point, so aptly put by Mr Eisenhower: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a thef…

Ever since we reneged on the decision Kennedy made to pull out of VietNam by Johnson, we've thought continually we were dealing with another defeated Japan or defeated Germany --the enemy population would just comply to our wishes, so we kept on thinking we could "turn them into replicas of American government" This thinking has undermined our actions in every major war since then, with the exception of GWI. Gulf War…

> Let's go back to congress needing to authorize wars and give them sole war-powers

The issue there is the massive conflict of interest and legal bribery.

Members of congress are getting obscenely rich from the Military Industrial Complex and their "campaign contributions". Their bank accounts want more wars.

Re: Economic costs of war

#270

Post by lmilcin »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #218
lmilcin wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one "lent" us money. Obviously you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. BOND. Issued by US government. Is a promise that US will pay back the price of the bond at some predetermined future date and in the meantime it will also be paying interest in regular installments. Others (including other countries) buy US bonds, which finances US spending. You know, whenever there is this big debate about wh…

Wow, you are a dick.

At least I am competent dick.

I work with financial instruments and risk for largest banks in the world.

I am competent to point out you have no idea when you say nobody lends US money because I am calculating risk of that debt as my day job.

I am not allowed tell you how much but surprisingly large portion of it.

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